table was the paper which they had delivered to the king. The case for the crown had therefore broken down, and an acquittai was inevitable. Chief Justice Wright was about to address the jury when Finch, of counsel for the defense, indiscreetly interrupted with a request to be heard. "If you will be heard you shall be heard." said Wright, "but you
of their intention to present a petition to the king, and that they had been admitted to an audience for that purpose. This circum stance, coupled with the fact that after the audience the king held in his hand a petition signed by them, was held sufficient evidence of publication to take the case to the jury. After all these vicissitudes in technical proof.
JUSTICE POWELL. do not understand your own interests." Finch's colleagues at length persuaded him to desist, and the chief justice was again about to proceed with his direction to the jury when a messenger appeared with the information that Lord Sunderland could prove the publication and was hastening- to court for that purpose. Lord Sunderland testified that the bishops had informed him
it still remained to convince the jury that the petition was a seditious libel. The alleged libel consisted in the suggestion made by the bishops that the king's declaration was illegal because it was founded upon a dis pensing power which did not exist. The de fense really was that the dispensing power did not exist and many records were put in evidence to show that such a power had been
